George Steinbrenner, owner of the New York...

George Steinbrenner, owner of the New York Yankees, reacted angrily to criticism by a lawyer for the Major League Players Assn. concerning Steinbrenner’s release of information about a voluntary drug test involving Yankee infielder Dale Berra.

Steinbrenner, referring to lawyer Gene Orza, said: “First of all, I do not know Gene Orza, but I would have to say that he probably never spent five minutes in a locker room as a player or a coach. He is certainly not about to tell me how to run the New York Yankees.

“I did what I did, not for personal image-building reasons as Orza suggests. I did it because Berra’s name was prominently mentioned in the Pittsburgh situation, and there was a lot of innuendo.

“On two different occasions, I asked him (Berra), with no advance notice, to voluntarily take a test for drugs. He had no way of knowing and he could have refused. He chose to undergo the tests and on both occasions passed with flying colors.

“I will not let him hang out there on the limb in the public’s eye without letting the public know what has taken place since he joined the Yankees. If Orza doesn’t like it, he knows what he can do with it . . . very little.”